Old Grognard:
We've been having a discussion about the deployment rules. The general view seems to be the Attacker gets a significant advantage over the Defender as the Defender must put all his troops on the table after which the attacker deploys with no "fog of war" limitations AND gets a bonus unit (or two irregulars).

Has anyone else encountered this?

We're trying out an experimental deployment tomorrow night, essentially 3 phases each, taken in turn (i.e. D-A-D-A-D-A) where the player deploys one arm of his army in each phase.

If anyone else has had similar concerns and addressed it by a house rule I'd appreciate the feedback.

kac:
I've seen people complaining about the attacker having too much of an advantage, and people complaining the attacker bears too high of a burden.

My conclusion is that it's probably not a difficulty, and is close enough to balanced.

fred:
In our games the attacker has generally struggled, but we haven't played enough games yet to get a good feel for the right space to concentrate a force in.

In our last game the attacker massed on one flank, which ended up leaving him exposed to a flanking cavalry move from the defender, which wiped out his artillery. In the end the game was very close.

I can see that after a number of games once the attacker has worked out how to deploy with concentration then they could end up always fighting against a fraction of the defender's force.

Peter Clarke:
I think the game is well balanced, but a mistake deploying by the defender which can be exploited by the attacker; or an attacker that just marches forward against a strong position, can lead to apparently one-sided games. As we get to know the game better (and I've been on both sides of the equation) games will be closer.